Global Warming 2.0 (thread reopened; let's keep it civil)

[Hielor]

And Al Gore is the Jesus Of the church of global warming.


we just don'nt have enough data to predict things like climate chance. things like this take tens of thousants of years of observations and mesurments, not hundreds(which we don't evan have).

evolutionary bioligists thoutht that the human race had stoped evolving about 55,000 years ago. it turnes out that humans have never been evolving faster then right now. and they only just discovered that 20 years ago.

the whole global warming BS just goes to show that there is just as much bad science now as there was 500 years ago.


oh and by the way, the sun has weather just like the earth, in face the sun's weather controls the earths weather...

incase you're woundering that last bit is heresy also.

I find it amusing that people who are aware that GW is a potential problem present mounds and mounds of evidence to support their claim. People who deny that it's a potential problem just dismiss it by saying "oh well we don't know for sure it's us" without presenting any evidence that either a) GW doesn't exist or b) it's not our fault.

 

[Andy44]

Well, don't let that get out. I've got my eye on that dictator job. GW could be just the ticket I've been waiting for! You guys ought to support me. There will be cozy places for Orbinauts in my regime.


-----Post Added-----

I find it amusing that people who are aware that GW is a potential problem present mounds and mounds of evidence to support their claim. People who deny that it's a potential problem just dismiss it by saying "oh well we don't know for sure it's us" without presenting any evidence that either a) GW doesn't exist or b) it's not our fault.

That;s because it's the AGW people who have something to prove. That's the way science works. Bypassing science with fear politics is a good way to get around, though. As a bonus, you get socialism, which is what many academics really want, anyway.

Best advice is to ignore me. I am the thread's court jester.

 

[Hielor]

That;s because it's the AGW people who have something to prove. That's the way science works. Bypassing science with fear politics is a good way to get around, though. As a bonus, you get socialism, which is what many academics really want, anyway.

"The way science works" is not "person A proposes a theory which is backed up with evidence, and then person B denies the theory by saying that person A is crazy without presenting evidence of his own."

The people who believe that GW is real have presented their case complete with facts and evidence. The burden is now on the other side. Sticking your head in the sand is not how science works.

 

[John_L]

that's because global warming doesn't exist, it's bullsh*t.

 

[TSPenguin]

Thread locked until further notice.
If you are unable to have a real discussion instead of attacking each other threads like this will not be permitted.

 

[dbeachy1]

O-F Staff note: after discussion, the staff went through this thread and removed the personal attack and off-topic comments (and there were a lot of them). The decision was to reopen this thread for now. However, let's please keep the debate civil. The staff is in agreement that any additional personal attacks in this thread will warrant an infraction, not just a warning. We realize that GW is a hotly-debated topic, but we can debate it without personal attacks.

Thank you,
O-F Staff

 

[David]

As somebody explained it to me, economic growth comes not from the things you own, but from how much faster the things leave your hands and get exchanged with others. Your economy could go down the drain, and you could still own more every day. But what you own, has less and less value to others.

I think that we kinda had a similar discussion, a while ago (then, pertaining to the significance and methodology of "Gross Domestic Product").

What you describe, seems to me to be a pretty bizarre description of "economic growth;" if it were conceptualized as merely a set of exchanges, then a "booming economy" could be effected by a bunch of people standing around in a circle and passing a pebble from hand to hand (with "rapid economic growth" being exemplified by speedy handoffs of the pebble).

Instead, "economic growth" has, in my experience, been conceptualized as production: e.g. - the transformation of intrinsically valueless raw materials, into useful objects (wild plant stalks [lumber] into houses, sparkly rocks [metal ores] into automobiles, black gooey fluid from underground [oil] into plastic television cabinets, etc.).

Commercial exchanges tend to accompany such production of valuably useful objects, but the exchanges, themselves, do not constitute "growth;" the production does.

 

[simonpro]

we just don'nt have enough data to predict things like climate chance. things like this take tens of thousants of years of observations and mesurments, not hundreds(which we don't evan have).

I'd suggest you let the climate scientists know this. Their entire profession is obviously based on a fallacy. I'm sure they'll be happy to hear how you've figured it out though.

evolutionary bioligists thoutht that the human race had stoped evolving about 55,000 years ago. it turnes out that humans have never been evolving faster then right now. and they only just discovered that 20 years ago.

Which has what relevance to climate change? Just because evolutionary biologists made a mistake doesn't mean that climatologists have.
You'll also notice that they admitted they were wrong, had a rethink about their theories and then continued with their new knowledge.
That is how scientists work, they do the best they can with fitting data to a theory. If additional data becomes available that alters the theory then they'll do so.

the whole global warming BS just goes to show that there is just as much bad science now as there was 500 years ago.

IMO, the problem rests squarely with the media, there's certainally a lot of bad reporting going on. Perhaps if people took the time to actually understand the theory and what it's based on then they wouldn't be quite so happy to rubbish it.

oh and by the way, the sun has weather just like the earth, in face the sun's weather controls the earths weather...

incase you're woundering that last bit is heresy also.

No, it's not heresay. It does show that you're criticising something without understanding it though*.

The IPCC report itself examines the effects of solar weather on terrestrial climate change:

Changes in the atmospheric concentrations of GHGs and aerosols,
land cover and solar radiation alter the energy balance of the
climate system and are drivers of climate change.

Read it before you criticise it next time, please.





*(I'm assuming you meant climate and not weather, the fact that the sun controls weather has been known for thousands of years)

 

[Urwumpe]

What you describe, seems to me to be a pretty bizarre description of "economic growth;" if it were conceptualized as merely a set of exchanges, then a "booming economy" could be effected by a bunch of people standing around in a circle and passing a pebble from hand to hand (with "rapid economic growth" being exemplified by speedy handoffs of the pebble).

Exactly - let me explain why.

Commercial exchanges tend to accompany such production of valuably useful objects, but the exchanges, themselves, do not constitute "growth;" the production does.

How does your model deal with services? If you pay somebody to cut your hair, what is the production? You pay somebody for his time and skills.

Or what kind of economic growth do you get, if you produce only for yourself? You will own more, sure - but without trading the goods, they are effectively without value. You own lots of them. But you can't or won't exchange them for other goods you need. You are not getting richer.

This is even more important when you look at banks: If you put money on your bank account, the bank will use a more or less part of it for giving loans away. That is how a bank makes profit. If this loan ends on the account of another bank, this money also gets borrowed for interest. If the loans get repaid, each dollar you had put on your bank account became a multiple of it - without producing anything. Just by making it available. If you would then repay the loans only by services, you would still make money and economic growth - without producing a single piece. Just by the exchange of services.

 

[Moonwalker]

 

[cjp]

Interesting documentary. Finally an explanation from the climate skeptics themselves.

Listing some of their claims:

• The northern hemisphere was 1.5 degrees warmer than now in medieval times
• Under current conditions (natural warming) man-made global warming is hard to prove
• Rise in ground temperature measurements is caused by urbanization, and the global atmospheric temperature hardly changes
• The sea level around the Maldives has been decreasing, and will continue to do because of increased evaporation
• The east Antarctic ice sheet will never melt, and will actually grow when temperatures rise (due to increased snowfall)
• The 'mainstream' computer models are inconsistent with each other

All of this is connected to the idea that under such uncertainty there can be no justification for expensive policy changes.

While some of these claims might just be true, they are mostly details. Unfortunately I didn't hear any arguments against the theory that the current HUGE amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause a delayed warming for several hundreds of years. Nobody in the documentary claimed that CO2 levels were within the natural variations of the last hundred-thousands of years. Nobody directly claimed that such delayed heating is nonsense and can't occur.

When it comes to science, simplicity is an universally recognized method for judging scientific theories. The basic theory of AGW is very simple: Greenhouse gases cause high temperature, mankind increases amount of greenhouse gases, therefore temperature will increase. The rest of the discussion is all about details that make the model more complicated. These could be important, especially when these 'details' have larger effects than the core theory, but you have to prove something before you can scientifically claim such a thing.

When it comes to decision making, I'd really like to see some kind of risk analysis. There must be some way to estimate the size of all missing factors in the climate model, so that, as long as we agree on logic, mathematics and the fundamental laws of physics, at least we can reach consensus on the probability of certain scenarios? Then, when taking all costs and probabilities of all scenarios into account, a reasonable decision should be available. With increasing accuracy of the models, decisions could be adapted at any time of course.

Maybe this is already done in the IPCC reports or whatever. In that case all resistance is irrational. I'm planning to actually read the IPCC reports myself. For such an important debate, I think it's worth to know what I'm talking about.

BTW, what would be the costs of switching to renewable energy sources right now, instead of waiting, say, 50 or 100 years, until fossil fuels are depleted? I'd say it's not a cost, it's an excellent opportunity to reduce unemployment during this economic crisis.

 

[David]

How does your model deal with services?

This is a good question, and I recognize that "services" are included in "economic production." I do not know the details of how they are evaluated as a contribution to an economy.

If you pay someone to cut your hair, then the "product" is an (allegedly) prettier head, which would be valuable to the person receiving the haircut.

As noted in the previous discussion, the GDP (as a measurement of economic growth) in fact evaluates exchanges, but in a way that is designed for them to represent production. Therefore, only exchanges involving the purchases of "final products" (and, I think, only new products), are counted, and not the mere transfer of things, or their components, from one person to another.

WRT banks, the initial deposit would represent an exchange value having been received by the depositor, for something that he had produced. The lending would not represent any final product, and it would therefore presumably not be counted as economic growth (although the salary of the banker, would represent his service and would likely be counted as being a thing of value). The interest/profit would represent the source of funding for new production.

So, the money would not simply multiply without production of anything of value, as you describe. Instead, the original, deposited money represents previous production, and the interest/profit represents new production. In real terms (excluding a consideration of monetary inflation, which devalues money by increasing its supply beyond that which would account for new products), money "grows" through interest, because it represents a potential for new production, and the eventual repayment of the loan's interest, would ultimately represent the exchange value of new products (or perhaps valuable services, which can be regarded as new, desirable conditions' being produced from the raw materials of undesirable conditions - such as excessively long hair, as in your haircut example).

In a way, the charging of interest for a loan, represents a request for advance payment for new products. As the loan is eventually repayed, with interest, the money for the payment of that interest, will have come from, and represents, the value of the new products/services created and sold by the borrower.

And of course, a failure to repay a loan, demonstrates a miscalculation/misrepresentation of value - on account of which, the participants in the loan procedure, suffer disappointment of their expectations - an "economic failure," although perhaps without any change in the real value of things.

As a kind of side note, it has been stated by economists, that every economic transaction represents a sort of "profit" for both sides of the transaction. The seller profits because the buyer's money is more valuable to him, than his own product (this is why he is willing to give away his product, in order to get the buyer's money), and the buyer profits because the seller's product is more valuable to him than his own money (this is why he is willing to give away his money, in order to get the seller's product). Objectively, the transaction represents an exchange of equivalent value, but subjectively, the trade represents an improved condition for both participants.

 

[Eagle]

When it comes to science, simplicity is an universally recognized method for judging scientific theories. The basic theory of AGW is very simple: Greenhouse gases cause high temperature, mankind increases amount of greenhouse gases, therefore temperature will increase. The rest of the discussion is all about details that make the model more complicated. These could be important, especially when these 'details' have larger effects than the core theory, but you have to prove something before you can scientifically claim such a thing.

[...]

BTW, what would be the costs of switching to renewable energy sources right now, instead of waiting, say, 50 or 100 years, until fossil fuels are depleted? I'd say it's not a cost, it's an excellent opportunity to reduce unemployment during this economic crisis.

Occam's Razor can only be applied if you don't lose correctness. One way to get around that is to say, "All other things held constant." The problem, is that on Earth all other things are NOT constant. Be sure to read the Controversial_aspects_of_the_Razor section on Wikipedia. It helps in many cases, but its more a rule of thumb/thinking technique instead of an explicit judging method.

The costs of switching to renewable energy sources is quite large. Its going to be a lot more than just how many solar panels you need for your house. Most electricity is used by industry and other commercial locations. Not to mention you would need a new car (and everyone else is buying one at the same time), The cities need new buses, thousands of other tiny changes to make. Switching to solar or wind is not a small thing to do. Hydroelectric is already heavily used. I'm not sure if you consider nuclear to be renewable.

Should we switch to renewable + nuclear? I think yes, but I don't think the AGW defense proposals are anywhere close to the way to achieve it.

 

[Omhra]

As it's being discussed by Urwumpe and David ( kind of ) the only way out of this intellectual down-slope we are in will be to make technology valuable, but not expensive. And I don't mean a better iPod...
Who would ever think that "it's backwards to move forward"?; I can't phanthom, but this is what I gather from all the arguments presented so far... wehther by uncertainty or prophetic retro-analisys of scientific understanding.
For those people it just seems more "cool" to be in with the "OLD"... I guess there is a lot of money to be made in old stuffs that clank and burn things to "go". Well OK.

However

I do notice a particular trend on the nay sayers... the "hit and run"... when confronted with a specific point they make like it never came up... they will say is Bul#, but never say why... and they are vastly ignorant of any methodology to speak off..
Having said that I will definetly choose my fights more carefully... and I will keep my pearls.

Last chance;

Moonwalker. I still want to hear why radiometrics don't work (in your view) and also your argument against sedimentary strata...
...nice videos tho...

I have some videos that explain that biolgy is so complex that only intelligent design is feasible...but comlplexity (irreducible as they argue) doesn't make that theory vialbe so...
The point being that "just because its "hard" [to understand]it does not mean it is not possible to occur under natural forces". Its the same in context with AGW.

Urwumpe... What, where... how did you come up with your name?


http://orbiter-forum.com/member.php?u=125

 

[simonpro]

Last chance;

Moonwalker. I still want to hear why radiometrics don't work (in your view) and also your argument against sedimentary strata...

Wait, what? Radiometrics don't work?

I too would be interested in hearing why not. As would the phd student I share my office with, seeing as they're currently designing an IR radiometer.

 

[Urwumpe]

Urwumpe... What, where... how did you come up with your name?

Offtopic: Was the first thought I had when asked for an user name for an AOL chat, about 12 years ago. Is an adjective from the local german slang, meaning "very unimportant".

 

[Moonwalker]

I did not say that radiometrics don't work. I say that rocks/local records do not enable us to know the Earth's overall climate history in great detail, to be able to build a final knowledge base and creating realistical climate forecasts. Climate science does not explain reality. It just tries to approach it.

Also, I would not call scientists who don't agree to the IPCC prophecies "climate sceptics". They are not sceptical on the whole. They just have a more careful and less dogged view on the topic of AGW, and they are very aware of climate changes.

Those who doubt AGW and don't agree to IPCC prophecies, do not have to proof anything. Those who try to largely influence politics and blame the humankind have to proof something. And they simply fail to do so, just like those here and elsewhere who have a dogged view on AGW.

 

[Urwumpe]

Those who doubt AGW and don't agree to IPCC prophecies, do not have to proof anything.

And that is blatantly wrong. They have to prove their own positives.

A new scientific theory is only valid, if it explains all observations of the existing theories. If you have a theory of natural global warming without human influence, it should explain why the CO2 raises without increased volcanic activity, and why mean temperatures all other the world, by using different measuring technologies, are raising.

Just say "You have to prove us that AGW is happening and WE define the rules" is not science, that is trolling at it's best.

 

[Moonwalker]

And that is blatantly wrong. They have to prove their own positives.

A new scientific theory is only valid, if it explains all observations of the existing theories. If you have a theory of natural global warming without human influence, it should explain why the CO2 raises without increased volcanic activity, and why mean temperatures all other the world, by using different measuring technologies, are raising.

Just say "You have to prove us that AGW is happening and WE define the rules" is not science, that is trolling at it's best.

Observations of a raising CO2 level and raising temperatures, do not explain that it's humans who have caused it, as past changes also can't be explained. Past changes even show that CO2 and temperature trend do not necessarily correspond.

For a few years the global temperature did not raise anymore, if some sources are correct. Also, not each place on the globe is experiencing temperature increases.

 

[Urwumpe]

Observations of a raising CO2 level and raising temperatures, do not explain that it's humans who have caused it, as past changes also can't be explained. Past changes even show that CO2 and temperature trend do not necessarily correspond.

Did I say this? You have to explain it anyway. You can't just say: it is all natural. You have to prove it is all natural. Can you? No?

Also, past temperatures do in fact correlate very well with the CO2. Other contributions in the temperatures are also well explained - for example solar activity, which you can also reconstruct from geology.

For a few years the global temperature did not raise anymore, if some sources are correct. Also, not each place on the globe is experiencing temperature increases.

Weather is not climate, weather is not climate...